Security is a critical issue with almost all aspects of computer use and mobile electronic device use, including portable memory storage devices. This also applies to any electronic products, such as camcorders, digital cameras, iPODs, MP3 players, smart phones, palm computers, gaming devices, etc., using such devices. Whether it is logging into an email account, protecting personal medical info, family pictures, etc. or accessing bank information, information must be supplied to gain access to view personal data. Much money and effort has been applied to guarding personal, corporate, and government information from hackers and others.
In an effort to preserve our identities and prevent unauthorized access to computer systems, it is industry practice to use different login names and passwords for each unique account. Many people currently write this information on paper notes that are carried between home and office, or out of town. Unfortunately, a paper note is not secure. If the paper note is dropped, anyone who finds it has access to all listed accounts.
To prevent access, electronic devices have been created such as a key chain tokens that allow management of up to 50 logins. The downside is that the solution requires manual transfer from a display to the computer and has a limited number of logins.
Further problems are occurring with portable memory devices. These data storage devices are small, ubiquitous, cheap (and getting cheaper), have huge memories (which are getting larger fast), and in today's configurations pose extraordinary security problems. A typical example is the Universal Serial Bus (USB) Flash Drive. The USB is an external peripheral interface standard for communication between a computer and external peripherals over a cable using bi-serial transmission. Millions of USB Flash Drives (UFDs) are being used not only for data backup, transfers, and intermediate storage, but also as primary storage for “portable content”.
Portable content is data or other information that is tied to an owner and not to a particular computer. A host computer is only a way to access and manipulate the portable content. It is becoming critical that portable memory devices have a security system for the content, which is host-independent and self-contained, since the content may otherwise be accessed and manipulated by unauthorized users using different computers in potentially security-hostile environments (kiosks, Internet cafés, presentation stations).
The affected user community is huge and every aspect of society is already vulnerable to security leaks and data compromise. Because the devices lack reliable and usable security features, financial databases, medical records, business records, national security information, in short any confidential information can be exposed and sent anywhere within seconds. Private, government, military, and corporate users are all concerned more than ever with being able to secure information on these portable, tiny, and easy to lose and steal devices, while being able to securely transfer data between different platform computers and embedded systems.
Portable memory devices are commonly connected to different computers in various environments that are security-uncontrolled and security-hostile. Consequently, for any portable memory device that needs security, it is critical that the security system onboard be self-contained and independent of external computers.
The most common means of providing security for information on these devices is to incorporate a password set accessed through software. Unfortunately, such security provides little deterrent to anyone willing to use readily available hacking techniques to get at the data.
There are number of current systems used to gain access to secure devices such as key loggers and USB “sniffers.” These systems can be installed on a target computer without the user's knowledge. Once a password or security exchange has been captured, it can then be sent to a malicious source.
More recently, biometric passwords (such as finger print detectors) have been incorporated into some of these devices and other computer peripherals, like keyboard, laptops, etc. Unfortunately, biometric sensors and security safeguards, by their nature, are capable of being circumvented.
With the growing numbers of portable memory storage devices and electronic products utilizing them, the need for security for the data (medical, financial, corporate, military, songs, pictures, movies, etc.) on these electronic products is greater than ever. No current technology has become available to provide the level of security that users need.
In an effort to prevent identity theft and prevent unauthorized access to computer systems, it is industry practice to use different login names and passwords for each unique account. In addition, it is recommended practice to change passwords at regular intervals. But this is time consuming and causes problems when passwords are forgotten.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.